Rajpurker, Joseph Ezekiel. The History of Antiochus Epiphanes or the Institution of the Feast of Dedication.

(INDIAN JUDAICA)

Gunput Crushnaji’s Press for Bene-Israel Improvement Society

Bombay

1866

Title in English, Hebrew and Marathi. Marathi text interspersed with Hebrew. Includes blessings for Chanukah. Title within typographical border

Not listed in Ya’ari (Bombay)

Joseph Ezekiel Rajpurker (1834-1905) translated several works from Hebrew to Marathi, the indigenous language of the Bene Israel Jews. The Machzor for Three Festivals that he published in 1901 describes him as “for forty years Head Master of the David Sassoon Benevolent Institution, Fellow and Hebrew Examiner of the University of Bombay, and Justice of the Peace.” See H.S. Kehimkar, The History of the Bene-Israel of India (Tel-Aviv, 1937), pp. 69-70, 4(photo likeness of Rajpurker); EJ, Vol. XIII, col. 1526